How To Help (and Get Help) With a Job Search
Do you know someone who needs job search help, or do you need a helping hand? Losing a job happens to almost everyone at some point in their working life, and it’s a tough spot to be in.
One of the hardest things about job searching, especially when you’re unemployed, is that it can feel like you’re all alone. From dealing with the feeling of rejection that comes along with the loss of a job, to filing for unemployment, trying to get your resume and cover letter ready, struggling to pay the bills, and then dealing with rejection all over again when you don’t hear back from employers, it’s hard.
It’s also a challenge when you’re employed and looking to make a change. This is a difficult job market for many people, and it can seem like your applications are lost in a black hole somewhere in space.
On the other side of the equation, when you have a family member, friend, or connection who is trying to find work, it can be hard to know what to do. But there are ways you can make a tough time better and help them get hired.
Whether you’re the person who needs a boost or you want to help someone who does, there are easy-to-do ways to get or lend a helping hand.
How to Help With a Job Search
Here are some ways you can help someone who is job hunting and could use some support.
Let them know it's not just them (it can take a long time to get hired in this job market)
Listen (that’s one of the best ways to help)
Review their resume
Proofread their cover letters (yes, AI can do it, but another pair of real eyes helps)
Share job resources
Send job leads
Provide a referral
Give a recommendation
Like or share their LinkedIn posts
Check in to see how it’s going
Offer to lend an interview outfit
Help with childcare or transportation for interviews
Give a gift card to help with food or expenses
Schedule an activity
How To Get Job Search Help
When you’re the one who’s job searching, don’t be afraid to ask for help and support. If you’re on LinkedIn, tap your network for assistance. When you’re a college student or graduate, check with career services to see if they can help.
Do you belong to a professional association? They typically have career resources for members. Look for local job clubs and see what programs your library may have for job seekers. Nonprofit community organizations often offer workshops and programs for job seekers.
Don’t forget to ask your family, friends, and neighbors for help. Remember that most people want to help, but they might not know what they can do to assist, so don’t be afraid to ask.
Also, check out these tips for finding free or low-cost job search assistance.
News & Noteworthy
The Best Way To Get an Interview: What's the best way to get an interview? A Resume Genius survey reports that what works best for respondents includes applying through job search engines (40%) and company websites (35%), followed by networking through word-of-mouth connections (34%), emailing or calling directly (30%), job fairs (26%), internal referrals (22%), and recruiters (21%).
It’s Not Just You: If you feel like your job search is going on forever, know it’s not just you. Jason Saltzman from Live Data Technologies has compiled data on 16M+ white-collar professionals who left a company from 2019 through 2024. In 2024, people were unemployed for longer than in prior years, with almost half of the people who left a company not finding a new job before year-end. Here’s what happened to the job market.
DEI Moves Forward: The Trump administration's DEI cutbacks are all over the news, as are the companies cutting back or changing DEI programs. It's not across the board, though. Some companies are moving forward with DEI initiatives and reiterating their importance in the workplace, including JPMorgan Chase, Costco, Apple, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and Pinterest.
Our Favorite Tips and Tools
Free Resume Review Services: Find My Profession has compiled a list of the best free resume review sites that will evaluate your resume and suggest improvements. Teal has a free resume checker that will grade your resume and suggest improvements. ResumeGenius will scan your resume and immediately suggest enhancements. For help from real people, check with your college career services office if you're a student or grad. Many offer free resume and cover letter reviews. Also, check to see if an American Job Center near you provides in-person assistance. You can search by zip code to find the nearest office.
Free Tax Filing: The Internal Revenue Service has announced that more taxpayers will be eligible to file their 2024 federal taxes for free using Direct File. You can check online for eligibility, and if your state has a free filing option, you’ll be directed to your state’s free filing tool after you complete your federal return. If your state doesn’t participate, here are seven free tax filing options from NerdWallet.
Tips for Discouraged Job Seekers: Are you tired, discouraged, or feeling like you'll never find a new job? Do you really need a job, but nothing you do seems to work? Here are tips that can help you get your job search on track and try out new approaches that can help you get hired.
Our Partners
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Jobsearchdb: When you're looking for a job in a specific industry or career field, using job sites that focus on the types of jobs you're interested in can be a time-saver. The Job Search Database includes links to hundreds of niche career sites, organized by category. It’s one of the best resources for finding job listings.
JobLogr: JobLogr is an AI-powered, mobile-friendly, platform you can use to find jobs faster and easier. You can organize and enhance every aspect of your job search, including searching for jobs based on your resume and application history, application tracking, resume and cover letter writing, LinkedIn optimization, and interview preparation. Sign up for a free trial, and if you're interested in subscribing, there's a special discounted monthly subscription rate for Job Hopper subscribers (use promo code Hop20).
Remotive: Remotive can expedite your search for a remote job, and the basic version (2000+ jobs) is free. Learn more about how Remotive can accelerate your job search, and sign up for the Remotive Accelerator to access over 30,000 listings and the Slack community for a one-time fee.
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Hi! We've created one of the first crowdsourced, anonymous databases for the hiring markets. I think there are 3 of us right now, myself - www.thejobapplicantperspective.com and two others but I haven't met with their founders yet so I'll avoid sharing names until I can verify validity of their offerings. You might also be interested in the jobsearchdatabase website.
The way I see it, most job boards are actually resume casinos not classifieds because unlike the newspaper, they make more money by flooding job seekers in misinformation. As such I paired my ghost job search database/5 star review system of the job market - with a job board because that way I will have the first job board with a built in librarian.
In general, to my mind, the only U.S. professionals capable of clearing the job market of the deceptive postings that swamp HRs in resumes from zombie jobs, steal talent and labor from businesses via offering clickbait, and steal salaries from American families for months at a time are the people who've experienced these 'opportunities' - U.S. job seekers. Also that if we aren't asking people to spend 30 dollars on baseball cards on Ebay without verifying the seller, we shouldn't be asking them to risk their kids' access to braces on whether or not that job they are applying for is a real job, a waste of time, or identity theft - ya know?
I hope you'll encourage people to check us out but also I'd be happy to meet up with you on LinkedIn to chat this out a bit and see if there's any space where we might cross promote each other!